John Tyler
Associate Professor of Education, Public Policy and Economics
Barus 108
(401) 863-1036 (phone)
(401) 863-1276 (fax)
John_Tyler@brown.edu
Areas of Specialization: Economics of Education, Evaluation Research, Quantitative Methods. I bring the training and perspective of an applied microeconomist to a wide range of questions that have some education policy component. Most of the research in which I engage can be characterized as "impact evaluation." That is, I am usually trying to answer questions about the causal impact of some policy variable or social intervention on an outcome of interest.
Office Hours
FallWednesdays 12-2pm
Degrees
Harvard Graduate School Of Education Ed.D., 1998
Dissertation: Credentials, Skills, and Dropouts: The GED as Labor Market Signal and as a Measure of Skills.
Advisors: Richard J. Murnane, Lawrence F. Katz, John B. Willett
University Of Texas at Austin M.Ed., 1992
Angelo State University B.S., 1972
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2009 -Correctional Programs in the Age of Mass Incarceration: What Do We Know About "What Works." In Maude Toussaint-Comea and Bruce D. Meyer (Eds) Strategies for Improving Economic Mobility of Workers: Bridging Reearch and Practice. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. (2009) With Jillian Berk. in print
2009 -Finishing High School: Alternative Pathways and Dropout Recovery. In Cecilia Rouse and James Kemple (Eds) The Future of Children, Vol. 19, No. 1(2009).Princeton, N.J. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. With Magnus Lofstrom. in print
2008 -Does MSP Participation Increase the Supply of Math Teachers? Developing and Testing an Analytic Model. Peabody Journal of Education, 83:4 (2008), 536-561. With Svetla Vitanova. in print
2008 -Modeling the Signaling Value of the GED with an Application to an Exogenous Passing Standard Increase in Texas. Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 28 (2008), 305-352. With Magnus Lofstrom. in print
2007 -Prison-Based Education and Reentry Into the Mainstream Labor Market. In Shawn Bushway, Michael A. Stoll, and David F. Weiman (Eds) Barriers to Reentry? The Labor Market for Released Prisoners in Post-Industrial America. Washington, D.C. Russell Sage Foundation (2007). With Jeffrey R. Kling. in print
2005 -Is the GED an Effective Route to Postsecondary Education? (Working paper version, not for citation. PDF file.)
2004 -Basic Skills and the Earnings of Dropouts. Economics of Education Review 23:3 (2004), 221-35. (Working paper version pdf.)
2004 -Does the GED Improve Earnings? Estimates from a Sample of Both Successful and Unsuccessful GED Candidates.Industrial and Labor Relations Review 57:4 (2004), 579-98. (Working paper version pdf.)
2004 -The Devil’s in the Details: Evidence from the GED on the Large Effects of Small Differences in High Stakes Exams . Economics of Education Review 23:4 (2004), 336-49. With Richard J. Murnane and John B. Willett. (Working paper version pdf.)
2004 -The General Educational Development (GED) Credential: History, Current Research, and Directions for Policy and Practice, in The Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, Vol. 5, Ed. John Comings.
2004 -Prison-Based Education and Re-Entry Into the Mainstream Labor Market. Brown Department of Economics Working Paper 2004-10. PDF file.
2003 -Who Benefits from a GED? Evidence for Females From High School and Beyond. Economics of Education Review 22:3 (2003), 237-247. With Richard J. Murnane and John B. Willett. (Working paper version pdf.)
2003 -Using State Child Labor Laws to Identify the Effect of School-Year Work on Academic Achievement. Journal of Labor Economics 21:4 (2003), 381-408. (Working paper version pdf.)
2003 -The Economic Benefits of the GED: Lessons from Recent Research. Review of Educational Research 73:3 (2003), 369-403. (Working paper version pdf.)
2000 -Do the Cognitive Skills of Dropouts Matter in the Labor Market?Journal of Human Resources 35:4 (2000), 748-754. With Richard J. Murnane and John B. Willett.
2000 -How Important Are the Cognitive Skills of Teenagers in Predicting Subsequent Earnings? (2000)Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 19:4. With Richard J. Murnane, John B. Willett, & Yves Duhaldeborde.
2000 -Estimating the Labor Market Signaling Value of the GED.Quarterly Journal of Economics 115:2 (2000), 431-468. With Richard J. Murnane and John B. Willett.
2000 -Who Benefits from Obtaining a GED? Evidence from High School and Beyond.The Review of Economics and Statistics 82:1 (2000), 23-37. With Richard J. Murnane and John B. Willett.
1995 -Are College Graduates Really Taking High School Jobs? Another Look at the Evidence.Monthly Labor Review 118:12 (1995), 18-27. With Richard J. Murnane and Frank Levy.
1995 -Did the Job Market Worsen for Male College Graduates Over the 1980s? Different Answers for Different Age Groups. In Solomon W. Polachek (Ed.), Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 14, 1995. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press Inc.: 69-90. With Richard J. Murnane and Frank Levy.
-- back to top --Appointments
- Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions
Joint courtesy appointment.
- Department of Economics
Joint courtesy appointment.
Interests
Research
Much of my research has examined the labor market outcomes of low-skilled individuals, particularly school dropouts, and the effectiveness of public policies designed to assist these individuals. I have also explored the topic of how working in high school impacts academic achievement. I am currently involved in a large project looking at the efficacy of correctional education and vocational programs in helping criminal justice offenders reintegrate into the labor market. More generally, my research interests focus on examining relationships between education and the labor market, exploring school reform issues, and evaluating the impact of public policies.
Teaching
Two of my courses cover topics in education policy analysis and public policy program evaluation. A third course that is presented as a junior/senior seminar, explores linkages between education, the economy, and school reform. This course is not being offered while I am serving as department chair. A fourth course is the department's introductory statistics course, which is currently being taught by Economics graduate student, Jillian Berk.
Research/Projects
USING STUDENT PERFORMANCE DATA TO INFORM INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE: LESSONS FROM CINCINNATI
In the past decade there has been an increasing call for the greater use of data as a tool to inform public sector decisions. In education, the Cincinnati Public School system (CPS) has become a national leader in “data-based decision making,” particular as this concept applies to the core of education—teaching and learning. The centerpiece of the CPS efforts at using data to improve student performance is their web-based Dashboard system. Dashboard was custom developed by CPS staff during the summer of 2005 and brought online in September of that year. Used in conjunction with student assessments including the district-wide benchmark assessments administered pre-K through 8th grade, the Dashboard system puts up-to-date, detailed information about individual student performance into the hands of classroom teachers in ways matched by only a vanguard of districts across the nation.
Using Dashboard, teachers are able to look at past Ohio Achievement Test results and district benchmark assessments for their current students to determine what concepts need to be re-taught in the classroom. Teachers are also able to monitor each individual student's progress on all district benchmark assessments (available on Dashboard within 1-3 days after the assessment) and state achievement tests, and they can use the Dashboard to view instructional strategies based on the needs of their students. Curriculum maps and pacing guides are also posted on the Dashboard and linked to resources that are tied to each standard and grade level indicator.
This two-year project evaluates how much and how teachers and administrators use Dashboard, and the extent to which Dashboard usage is associated with student achievement. Answers to these questions will come from qualitative research based on focus group inquiries, interviews, and surveys, as well as quantitative analyses of web logs that arise from Dashboard usage.
Documenting and Explaining Racial Differences in Noncognitive Skills
A well established literature has documented a troubling and persistent black-white “test score gap.” One reason for concern over the racial test-score gap is the existence of an equally well established literature linking the cognitive skills measured on these tests to later education and earnings.[1] Meanwhile, an emerging line of research has focused on the importance of individual behaviors, attitudes, and traits that are conceptually distinct from cognitive skills. Research on these so called “noncognitive skills” shows that factors such as motivation, organizational ability, leadership, and attitudes about self-efficacy are important predictors of educational attainment and earnings in their own right.
Taken together, these three literature strands cause one to ask whether there might be racial differences in noncognitive skills similar to what is found for test scores. This as yet unanswered question provides the rationale for this project and suggests these specific research questions:
- Is there a black-white noncognitive skills gap at high school entry?
- If so, what are the direction and magnitude of any differences and for what types of noncognitive skills do we observe racial differences?
- To what extent do factors such as family background and differences in the kinds of schools that black and white students attend help to explain any observed racial differences in noncognitive skills?
- Do observed racial noncognitive skill “gaps” close or widen during the high school years?
[1] For a summary of the literature and issues surrounding the “black-white test score gap” see Jencks and Phillips (1998). Fryer and Levitt (2002) provide an update on the topic for the early elementary years. Papers in the literature linking test scores to later earnings include Murnane et al. (2000, 1995), Tyler (2004) and Neal and Johnson (1996).
Identifying Effective Classroom Practice Using Student Achievement: Evidence from Cincinnati’s Teacher Evaluation System
In the search for effective teachers, a growing number of school districts are turning to two different approaches. One approach seeks to measure teachers’ productivity on the job directly, using the achievement of their students (adjusted for each student’s prior test scores) as an indicator of effective teaching (value-added). A second approach seeks to measure and evaluate the use of effective instructional practices in the classroom.
While sometimes seen as alternatives to one another, we believe that these two approaches are complementary. First, in order to design tools for evaluating effective teaching practices, school leaders need to a fact base on which classroom practices to encourage. The value-added approach provides a non-circular way for validating those practices deemed as effective. Second, value-added estimation of teacher effectiveness itself has significant limitations. For instance, this approach is currently limited to a handful of grades (typically 4th through 8th grade) and subjects (math and language arts) where students are tested on an annual basis. This means that roughly two-thirds of teachers are not “covered” by this approach. As school leaders still need instruments to evaluate performance in these classrooms, practice-based rubrics will be necessary. Third, because of the small number of students in a given classroom and other sources of statistical imprecision, “value-added” measures are subject to measurement error. Practice-based measures could supplement value-added measures to provide a more complete assessment of a teacher’s effectiveness.
In this joint project with Prof. Tom Kane of Harvard, we propose to study the potentially complementary relationship between value-added measures of teacher effectiveness and a well-developed practice-based evaluation system in Cincinnati – the Teacher Evaluation System (TES). We will seek answers to three general questions:
- Which of the standards included of the TES (there are sixteen standards) have the most predictive power in identifying high “value-added” teaching? How should the various components of the TES be weighted to maximize the ability to identify high “value-added” teachers? (In the current system, all 16 are given equal weight.)
- Does the TES measure improvement in instructional practice? In other words, is there any evidence that those teachers whose TES scores improve (or decline) over time have larger (or smaller) impacts on their students’ achievement?
- Are some principals or peer assessors better than others at identifying high value-added teachers? Are all raters equally good at using the TES scoring rubric to identify effective teaching? If not, what are the characteristics of the more successful raters?
Areas of Expertise
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Courses
EDUC1130 - Economics of Education I
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